CNN's 'Cordial' Hire

Headline News picks would-be killer Glenn Beck as host

CNN’s Headline News has hired radio talkshow host Glenn Beck to host a one-hour primetime show, according to a Daily Variety report (1/17/06). Variety quotes CNN Headline News president Ken Jautz's description of Beck: "Glenn’s style is self-deprecating, cordial; he says he'd like to be able to disagree with guests and part as friends. It's conversational, not confrontational."

But Glenn Beck’s hateful rhetoric tells a different story.

Beck, best known for setting up Clear Channel's pro-war Rallies for America shortly before the Iraq War, once described how much he loathed anti-war presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (WABC-AM, 3/16/03): "Every night I get down on my knees and pray that Dennis Kucinich will burst into flames."

In 2004, Beck called Michael Berg, whose son had been beheaded in Iraq, "despicable" and a "scumbag" because the elder Berg criticized George W. Bush in the wake of his son’s death (Mediamatters.org, 5/17/04).

I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out--is this wrong?

Beck also accused Moore of "taking help and money from Hezbollah."

He wasn’t much more charitable to victims of Hurricane Katrina, some of whom he called "scumbags." On September 9, Beck said that Katrina victims caused a "near riot" when ATM cards were distributed to the displaced (Mediamatters.org, 9/9/05):

When you are rioting for these tickets, or these ATM cards, the second thing that came to mind was--and this is horrible to say, and I wonder if I'm alone in this--you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9/11 victims' families? Took me about a year.... But the second thought I had when I saw these people and they had to shut down the Astrodome and lock it down, I thought: I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9/11 victims.... And that's all we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we're seeing on television are the scumbags--and again, it's not all the people in New Orleans. Most of the people in New Orleans got out! It's just a small percentage of those who were left in New Orleans, or who decided to stay in New Orleans, and they're getting all the attention.

In the same broadcast, he explained his animus against the relatives of September 11 victims (while maintaining that "of the 3,000 victims' families, I don't hate all of them. Probably about 10 of them"): "When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh shut up!' I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining. And we did our best for them."

The strategy of out-Foxing Fox by signing up incendiary right-wing talkshow hosts is a dangerous one, as MSNBC found when it gave a show to hate-radio star Michael Savage and had to let him go when it turned out that his TV persona spouted the same vitriol featured on his radio show (FAIR Action Alert, 7/7/03). Headline News executives may put Glenn Beck on the air in spite of his hateful baggage, but they shouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t turn out to be the "cordial" and tolerant host they are touting.

ACTION: Contact Ken Jautz and ask him to explain his characterization of Beck as "cordial." Ask him if CNN Headline News supports the hateful and violent commentary Beck is known for.